


Solstice

by ImpOfPerversity



Series: Devastation-verse [24]
Category: Baroque Cycle - Neal Stephenson, Pirates of the Caribbean (Movies)
Genre: 1 Sentence Fiction, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2004-12-19
Updated: 2004-12-19
Packaged: 2018-10-21 07:32:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,180
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10680651
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ImpOfPerversity/pseuds/ImpOfPerversity





	Solstice

As the _Black Pearl_ sailed ever further south, and the year span towards its ending, there were mornings when Jack Shaftoe half-woke from his night's sleep in the warm, fuggy cabin that he shared with Jack Sparrow; half-woke with dreams of England trailing through his thoughts, dreams and memories and phant'sies of his far-distant homeland (though home now was here, and the whole of his heart) in all its wintry glory, a glory that Jack and Bob -- and, in the distant recesses of memory before their brother's premature demise in the cold clutches of the Thames-current, Dick -- had learned to unravel (like good hempen rope embedded in a tangled mass of mooring-cables) from the ghastly privations and deprivations that could, and did, befall a trio of barefoot Vagabond brats, toenails blue with cold, exposed early to the constant necessity of taking advantage of the gentry's parsimonious charity and the fortuitous drunkenness of various market-traders, street-vendors, inn-keepers and (the Shaftoe boys were not proud) other Vagabonds whose merriment implied a corresponding lapse in their attention to their possessions, wares and diverse coinage: Jack had many happy memories of scampering sure-footed over treacherously icy cobbles, his leathery soles finding better purchase than the clomping footwear of any irate merchant, with some treasure -- a sweetmeat, a handful of raisins, a three-quarters empty skin of tepid wine -- clutched in his icy little hand, ready for consumption or commerce when he rejoined his brothers (or half-brothers, as it might be) in the shelter of whatever shed or shack had provided their temporary headquarters; Jack was the quickest of 'em all, though he was the youngest, and he'd been the most daring too, what with Dick always impeded by their mother's baleful admonition to "look after your little brothers, or I'll have your hide", and Bob being, well, _Bob_ , all sensible and humourless and not seeing the _point_ of a number of Jack's most daring and courageous appropriations; "but what'll we _do_ with a bag of clove-bark?" (or a lady's pomander, or a ballad-sheet that none of them could read and which Jack'd thought Bob was probably holding upside down), he'd complain, and Jack, blowing white clouds of shivery breath on his frozen fingers, would improvise and expound upon any number of thrilling schemes for the disposal of his -- their -- latest spoils, 'til such time as some Watchman, market-thug or other grown man desired them (in simple language, though often very persuasively) to move along, or Dick, bossy ol' Dick, intervened and made an Executive Decision with all the authority of his scant year's seniority: aye, they'd been fine times, and often -- well, sometimes -- after a profitable day's adventures, room would be made for them at the fireside in the dilapidated hovel which passed for a tavern in Old Boar Court, at the end of the muddy track which ran beside Mother Shaftoe's abode, and Jack and Dick would join in relating, and embellishing, their entrepreneurial activities, in the hope of approbation and encouragement (though mostly, 'twas true, in the hope of _dinner_ ): which art of embellishment had served both Bob and Jack very well, in later years, when -- after London had become a less lucrative playground, due to the ravages of Plague and Fire -- they'd found themselves recruited as errand-boys and court jesters to Churchill's Regiment, down in the West Country where the pickings and gleanings, even in the snowiest and most pewtery days of winter, were better than anything achieved by the sneakiest poachers and pilferers of the King's Park at Greenwich, and a pair of scrawny, half-grown lads could return at dusk with a brace of pheasant and a couple of coneys, not to mention any hazelnuts, late berries, grain, wizened apples, turnips or swedes which the local farmers had been careless enough to leave lying around: and oh, the thundrous merriment of the Regimental Hall at Christmas, with a veritable bonfire on the hearth, and a roasting pig (to be consumed as quick as might be, it otherwise being Evidence against whichever soldier had put a string round its neck and led it swiftly and silently away from its fellows), and half-burnt chestnuts, and jests and dumb-shows and plays, with music from whatever travelling players the Sergeant'd managed to lure away (with promises of bed and board and perhaps, if deemed worthy by popular vote, _payment_ ) from the inns and stews of Taunton, and enough ale and wine and mead to make any scrawny Vagabond boy puke his guts up outside in the dirty snow behind the stables, and crawl off to his and Bob's cosy bed in the hay-loft nursing the fervent hope of never waking up; and though Jack recalled those days most fondly, and frequently, waking, thought he'd smelt a phantom whiff of clovery hay, it always proved but a phantom, and the reality -- though still excessively chilly to Jack, who preferred his weather more _clement_ than England's white winters -- ever so much preferable, now that it was Jack Sparrow's warm skin that touched his own, that he was encouraged -- nay, exhorted -- to press more firmly against, and Jack Sparrow's sinewy arm that held him near; now that, instead of being cruelly thrust away by his slumbering sibling when he sought shared heat, he was caught close, so close that he breathed the humid air that issued from Jack Sparrow's red, half-open mouth, a mouth that Jack (remembering its skills and secrets, and its willingness to share) could not resist opening his eyes to gaze upon, which sight evoked all manner of other, more recent and much more uncompromisingly delightful, memories; of kissing and tasting and murmured speech, and then of Sparrow, yesterday, bidding him to don an extra coat as they stood on deck under a white daytime crescent of moon, watching the sun set behind snow-dappled cliffs before the afternoon was half done, watching the waves break creamy-yellow on beaches fringed with pale ice, and of Jack Sparrow saying, "'tis midsummer's day, Jack, south of the line": and Jack Shaftoe, his ear still tingling with what Sparrow'd assured him was the traditional mutilation associated with one's first sojourn below the Equator, had frowned, puzzling this out, for he made it _December_ by now; and then he'd found his way to it, and said, "So it's mid _winter_ , Jack, back in London?": "Aye, and in Port Royal too, though you'd never think it," Sparrow had answered, grinning, "for they've not precisely the climate for mulled wine and roast chestnuts, eh?", and _that_ had been what'd set Jack Shaftoe's mind a-running on the subject of Christmas, never mind that they were bound far south for Magellan's Straits and the broad Pacific, and that the snow on the mountains rising on the _Pearl_ 's starboard bow were white not with winter, but with sheer southing, with unmelting snow; and, thinking of Christmas, he realised that he would spend this Christmas Night in Jack Sparrow's arms, feeling the heat of his flesh and the beat of his heart, which seemed joy enough for any night, all nights, of the wheeling year.


End file.
